


The Trials of the Sea Witch

by Raven_Song



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Original Work
Genre: Gothic fairytale, Little Mermaid Elements, Sea Monsters, Selkies, This is my love letter to Irish legends, Whale hunting (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 12:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Song/pseuds/Raven_Song
Summary: Saorise wants to escape her life of fishing and drudgery. Becoming the apprentice of the sea witch seems the perfect option, but the witch needs Saorise to do three tasks for her first...





	The Trials of the Sea Witch

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this for my fairy tales class as my take of the Little Mermaid story. Twitter finally convinced me to post it here. This is my first original work on AO3, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> As always, kudos and comments feed this poor author's heart

The cottage stood stark against the green knolls just beyond the sea cliffs. A girl hovered on the stoop, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders to fend off the winter chill. The girl’s hair was black as night and her eyes as wild as a tempest.

When the plain woman answered and asked her business, the girl tossed her hair back proudly and introduced herself as Saorise. She was here for the sea witch. The woman bade her enter, but warned her that she sought within might not be what she finds.” The plain woman stepped aside and Saorise entered, struck by the warmth of a fire and the comforting scent of tea. Dried herbs hung from the rafters, and jars of glass beads cast colored patches on the floor. Curtains that were probably once blue had faded to the gray of all cloth kept so near the salty ocean. The woman went to the kettle and poured tea for the pair of them before alighting in the chair across from the dark-haired girl. 

Saorise explained to the woman that she wished to be apprenticed to the sea witch. The woman blinked in surprise or apathy, Saorise couldn’t tell. “I’m nobody. My father’s a fisherman, my mum is a fishwife. If I live this life, I’ll marry a poor fisherman and never truly have my freedom.” 

“It’s a difficult road which you seek,” the bland woman mused. “‘Twill not be kind to you. A witch is a frightful woman. If you choose this life they will never trust you, never welcome you. I would know.” Saorise set her cup down. This plain woman was the sea witch? But she was supposed to be ugly, or beautiful. This was the temptress, the sorceress her village lived in fear of? 

The witch gave her three tasks to do. First, she had to fetch a pearl that grows in the depths of the bay below. Second, she must kill a monster of the deep. It had to be done that night, when the moon is hidden and the skies are dark. Third, a storm will arise three days hence and leave a sole survivor of a wreck. Saorise must nurse him to full health. Once he confesses his love for her, she was to take a crescent shaped knife and plunge it into his heart. And Saorise left the witch’s hut, shivering with anticipation of her trials. It is impossible for a human to safely delve those inky depths, but a myth her _mamó_ had told in the voice that rasped with age and whiskey. “There are people born in the sea. Selkies. They come ashore and if you’re lucky, you can find the magic sealskins they leave behind. If you put on the skin, you are transformed into a magic creature.” 

She clambered over the rocky shore, her wet skirts tangling around her legs like cold hands. It was nearly midday when she found it: a pile of slinky brown fur. Pulling the fur over her legs, her stomach, up to her head. When the hood fell over her eyes, a power rippled through her. She was no longer a girl. She was a powerful selkie, and with a deep breath she dove into the sea. She was grace. Power. A predator. Carried by the strong currents, she spiraled down in her new body. Saorise had never felt such feelings as these. Joy burst out of her, crackling through the water as she sank deeper in search of her quarry. 

The pearl glinted in the maw of a clam. It was no trouble to snatch it up and carry the precious stone between her teeth. It was with a sort of sinking sorrow the girl swam for the light and the surface. She had completed her task, but she would likely never feel this again. Breaching the surface, she huffed out her captured breath and made for shore. Saorise felt the silken sealskin hood slip from her head and slough off of her body. 

Her steps were heavy with yearning as she turned her back to the ocean and returned to her village. She would wait until the night to go and hunt the monster. 

This task Saorise knew well. On the nights when a whaling ship returned to the harbor the men, flush with new coin would pay a visit to the dismal tavern where Saorise pulled pints. Their stories were always tales of blood and iron, water and whale. And in the wake of especially bountiful hunts, Saorise could while her way into learning how to spear a whale. 

It was not difficult to wait until dusk and creep aboard a ship to steal a harpoon. Down to the docks she went, mindful of the strange object strapped to her back. She slipped the knot of a small boat loose, climbing in and pushing off. The water looked like shadows, murky and frigid and not at all inviting. Saorise shivered. If she were to fall in tonight the shock of the cold would mean she’d surely drown. 

The lights of town faded as she pulled hard on the oars. The splashing of midnight waves on the hull, the blood rushing through her ears was Saorise’s music, and the harpoon at her feet her only companion. The land was long gone. Saorise’s little boat was the only speck on the endless waves. Surely there were monsters here. 

Then she heard it. Stilling the oars, the girl craned her head, eyes scanning the eternal blackness of sky and sea for something, anything that could have made that sound. Again. This time to the starboard. Ears strained to catch it. There. Something huge sluicing through the water like a knife. 

Song. 

Alien to her ears, the water around her reverberated with the low groans. Trills ran into heartrending cries. The monster breached to her port, rocking her boat. Chills ran up her spine. This was music of the wild. It was unholy. Inhuman. Saorise was moved to weep or to hide, but she steeled herself. 

Slowly, silently, Saorise reached down for the harpoon. Her eyes were blind to everything beyond the hull of her boat. Her ears would have to guide her hand. Saorise shut her eyes, praying that she could make this. She listened, pointing her face to the direction the monster’s sounds were coming from. Pulling back her arm, Saorise paused for a breath. She loosed the harpoon. 

The rope flapped in the air. A dull squelch as the blade hit. The iron tang of blood, and a scream. Oh, that scream. The song of the monster had been eerie. This bellow was pure agony and rage, and it split the silence of the moonless night. 

Saorise almost let the rope slip past her in her shock. Winding it around her hands, she braced her feet and pulled. Whatever was on the end thrashed. Holding on, desperately trying to stay in the boat, the girl fought the beast. This was her last chance to escape her life. 

Minutes, hours, sometime after forever, the wriggling slowed. And then stopped. Saorise collapsed on herself for a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. After she pulled the ungodly creature into her boat, she could hardly understand what it was she had killed. 

It had scales, but none like a fish. It was armored from head to tail and coated in some vile slime. Its teeth were row upon row of jagged bone, but its eyes unsettled her most of all. Its eyes gazed up at her, empty, but still clearly human. 

Saorise rowed back to shore with haste, ignoring her screaming muscles. She needed to get away from this dead thing. 

At long last the boat was docked, the oars stowed. Saorise found an old canvas bag and roughly shoved the creature inside. She hid it under her bed next to a small snuffbox which held the pearl. Only one task left. 

The storm whipped from the west with fury. Rain lashed at Saorise’s face and the wind burned her eyes. She stood on the sandy beach staring into the gray horizon. The ship had wrecked, as promised, and even here she could hear the screams of the men aboard as they were pinned to the jagged rocks. A brownish shape emerged from the waves. 

He was young, with sand caking in his brown curls. She waded into the water, biting her tongue against the cold. She dragged him out of the waves and past the mark of the tide, collapsing to her knees. His eyes fluttered open, green as the countryside. Saorise barely caught the words mumbled on half-drowned lips. _An angel._

Saorise waited until he could find strength to stand and draped his arm over her shoulder, bearing his weight and carrying him up to the small cottage. She laid him down on the bed, draping a warm blanket about his shoulders and giving him a warm tea to drink. Saorise set about tending to his wounds. One particular gash on his side worried her. As she worked, the boy told her his story. 

His name was Ruari. He was from a village up north. The storm had sprung out of nowhere, and he was fortunate enough to know how to swim. “The others,” he shuddered. Now that he was warmed by the fire and the salt and sand had been washed from his hair, Saorise could see that he was handsome. Ruari thanked Saorise for her kindness. It was no bother, she told him. She couldn’t live with herself if she had let a poor soul such as him drown. 

“You have a lovely voice,” Ruari told her on the third day. She looked up at him from where the fire where she was preparing stew. “You sing when you work.” His cheeks colored a little as he spoke. “But when you sing, you always sound so sad. A beautiful girl like you should never carry the sorrow you have, Saorise.” She moved to sit next to him and he took her hands in his own. His confession was a bumbling, blushing affair ending with a hasty _‘I love you’._

_ _Saorise smiled at him, the façade slipping away like rain as the darkness behind her eyes surged up. Ruari’s eyes flashed in terror. Her knife flashed silver as she plunged it into his heart, batting away desperate hands. _ _

_ _It was odd, watching Ruari bleed out. Blood bubbled from his mouth, popping with failed attempts at speech. His hands grasped for Saorise’s skirts, her arms. In time, the hands fell limp onto the floor. She pulled out the silver knife, the crescent blade dripping crimson onto the stilling body below. Saorise watched the spark in Ruari’s green eyes fizzle and fade. She found it hard to breathe. _ _

_ _She looked up from Ruari’s handsome face to find the witch. The women stared at each other, one panting with the rush of taking a life, the other placid. The witch extended her hand, and Saorise’s own bloodstained palm slipped into hers as she was pulled to her feet. Something had changed in Saorise, but she didn’t know what it was until she took the witch’s hand. _ _

_ _The trials were not intended to be an audition; they never were. _ _

_ _The cottage stood stark against the green knolls just beyond the sea cliffs. A girl shivered, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders to fend off the winter chill. When she rapped on the door, it swung open to reveal a beauty with stormy eyes and hair of the blackest night. _ _

_ _“I am Aoife and I am here for the sea witch,” the girl breathed. “I wish to learn from her.” _ _

_ _“I am Saorise, the sea witch,” the woman replied with a smile. “You can learn from me, but first you must do three tasks…”_ _


End file.
